Sunday, March 02, 2008

Jerusalem Post reported Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas labeled Israel's actions to counter the constant firing of rockets into the Gaza Strip "worse than the Holocaust."

Why, because it was against Arabs?

Abbas said that Israel's response to the continuous bombardment of western Negev towns by Palestinian terrorists was too severe,

All the Gazans have to to is stop firing the rockets, and the puishment strikes will stop.

saying that its operations which have left at least 80 Palestinians dead on Saturday were unacceptable retaliation to the firing of rockets.

What would be an acceptable retaliation? What if Gaza wanted to live in peac with its neighbor Israel, and Israel fired rockets into Gaza randomly on a daily basis?

The Fatah head was not the only Palestinian leader to be associating the military maneuvers with the Holocaust - exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal described the operations as "the real Holocaust" on Saturday afternoon.

Same talking points.

"Israeli actions in Gaza since Wednesday is the real Holocaust," Mashaal told reporters in Damascus, where he lives in exile. He accused Israel of "exaggerating the Holocaust and using it to blackmail the world."

Let's see. 80 compared to 6 million. I can see where you might be confused. But remember the Jews were not firing rockets daily into Nazi cities hoping to kill anyone they could.

TigerHawk blogged The entire idea behind deterrance is that the retaliation for an attack might well be out of proportion to the attack itself. One would think that the reason for this is obvious, but it seems lost on the Palestinians and their sympathizers.

If law or morality or God were to require that retaliation for an attack be commensurate with the attack itself, then attackers would essentially dictate the force that could be used against them. The attacker could then calmly decide whether it was more able or willing to absorb losses than the defender and structure the attack accordingly, all with the comfort of knowing in advance that law, morality, or God would not allow the defender to inflict losses that the attacker was not able or willing to sustain.

In other words, if the attacker can control the extent of the retaliation against him, he will not be deterred from attacking in the first place. Effective deterrance requires that the attacker not be able to predict the losses he will suffer in retaliation. A prospective attacker will only be deterred if he know that there is at least the possibility of massive retaliation out of proportion with the original attack. This is why, for example, Dwight Eisenhower loudly declared that any nuclear attack on the United States, no matter how limited, would be met with massive, unconditional, and total retaliation. Anything less might not have deterred such an attack in the first place.

So, the next time you hear some fool bleating witlessly about the Israelis -- or anybody else -- responding to an attack "disproportionately," take the time to point out to them that the morality they propose would result in more war rather than less.